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Sarmatiana: A List of References, Old & New
#46
Riothamus is recorded as being defeate dby Euric in 470, but I don't know of this instance. It was around that time though that Sidonius Apollinaris and his land-owners were utilizing Bucellarii to fend off the Visigoths of Euric though.
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#47
Geoffrey Ashe thought that Riothamus was "King Arthur." No, it wasn't Riothamus I was thinking of, but I did read it in Sidonius... someone he knew, personally. :dizzy:
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
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#48
There were a couple instances before the siege of Clermont in Auvergne where their Bucellarii were successful in defeating Euric. It's possible the Bucellarii of Sidonius and Friends were the Alans of Sambida settled there in the 430's by Aetius.
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#49
The guy I was thinking of is Edicius. One brave dude... but not as brave as the Dacians. :dizzy:
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
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#50
Quote:The guy I was thinking of is Edicius. One brave dude... but not as brave as the Dacians. :dizzy:
Ecdicius. Son of the (later) emperor Avitus, a Gallo-Roman noble from the mid-late 5th c. AD, surely of the folks like Riothamus and all those proto-Arthurs bravely attempting to save their own region.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#51
Hi, Robert

I think he's one and the same. :-)

He sallies out of an Arvern city leading a small cavalry unit, surprises the crap out of Euric's army, and then withdraws without many casualties.
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Reply
#52
Quote:He sallies out of an Arvern city leading a small cavalry unit, surprises the crap out of Euric's army, and then withdraws without many casualties.
He lifted the Visigothic siege of Clermont-Ferrand with 10 or 18 horsemen. I assumed that was from outside the city (his brother-in-law Sidonius Appolinaris was bishop of the city).
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#53
It's not letting me post it, but I'll upload Sidonius' letters regarding Ecdicius here in a minute.

EDIT: first one worked, but I think the second letter is too long to post. Is there a limit on the number of words in a post?
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#54
Quote:BOOK II
I.

To [his brother-in-law] Ecdicius*
c. A.D. 470

[1] YOUR countrymen of Auvergne suffer equally from two evils. 'What are those?' you ask. Seronatus' presence, and your own absence. Seronatus----his very name first calls for notice; 1 I think that when he was so named, a prescient fortune must have played with contradictions, as our predecessors did, who by antiphrasis used the root of 'beautiful' in their word for war, the most hideous thing on earth; and, with no less perversity, the root of mercy in their name for Fate, because Fate never spares. This Catiline of our day is just returned from the region of the Adour to blend in whole confusion the fortune and the blood of unhappy victims which down there he had only pledged himself in part to shed. [2] You must know that his long-dissembled savagery comes daily further into the light. His spite affronts the day; his dissimulation was abject as his arrogance is servile. He commands like a despot; no tyrant more exacting than he, no judge more peremptory in sentence, no barbarian falser in false witness. The livelong day he goes armed from cowardice, and starving from pure meanness. Greed makes him |35 formidable, and vanity cruel; he continually commits himself the very thefts he punishes in others. To the universal amusement he will rant of war in a civilian company, and of literature among Goths. Though he barely knows the alphabet, he has the conceit to dictate letters in public and the impudence to revise them under the same conditions.

[3] All property he covets he makes a show of buying; but he never thinks of paying, nor does he trouble to furnish himself with deeds, knowing it hopeless to prove a title.1 In the council-chamber he commands, but in counsel he is mute. He jests in church and preaches at table; snores on the bench, and breathes condemnation in his bedroom. His actions are filling the woods with dangerous fugitives from the estates, the churches with scoundrels, the prisons with holy men. He cries the Goths up and the Romans down; he prepares illusions for prefects and collusions with public accountants. He tramples under foot the Theodosian Code to set in its place the laws of a Theodoric,2 raking up old charges to justify new imposts. [4] Be quick, then, to unravel the tangle of affairs that makes you linger; cut short whatever causes your delay. Our people are at the last gasp; freedom is almost dead. Whether there is any hope, or whether all is to be despair, they want you in their midst to lead them. If the State is powerless to succour, if, as rumour says, the Emperor Anthemius is without resource, our nobility is determined to follow your lead, and give up their country or the hair of their heads.3 Farewell. |36

Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters. Tr. O.M. Dalton (1915) pp. 34-62 ; Book II
* Partly translated by Fertig, Part i, p. 20.
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#55
Thanks for posting Sidonius' letter to Ecdicius with its tirade on Seronatus. We find Ecdicius absent, probably on a fishing trip in Canada (nuk, nuk, nuk). So, we find Seronatus as a super-proactive Goth sympathizer. I think Ecdicius was a fairly clean Arvernus, actually (at least physically) a "proto-knight."

I don't know if there's a length/kilobyte ceiling. I've posted some long stuff, including 3 or 4 photos... which really must eat up the wealth. :dizzy:

Sometimes, my own posts fail to "arrive." I don't complain to Jasper; he's the KING, and carries one hell of a load.
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
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#56
Robert & Evan,

Here it is. Sidonius, Book III, Letter III, 5, to Ecdicius (his brother in law, as noted by Robert.) After Ecdicius returns from his foray against the Goths without the loss of a cavalryman, he is greeted by a throng. Sidonius writes:

"Some kissed away the dust which covered you, others caught the bridle that was thick with blood and foam; some turned back the pommels of the horses' saddles, which were bathed in sweat, others, when you wished to free your head from the skull-piece of the helmet, unclasped the bands of pliant steel; some entangled themselves in disentangling the fastenings of your greaves; some counted the dents on the edges of swords blunted with slaughter; others by forcing in the envious fingers measured the holes made by blade and point amid the rings of cuirasses...."

This is the passage I was thinking of. It's a glimpse of the future and the Holy Knight of the middle ages. But it was a direct blend of Sarmatian, Roman, and Gallic, equestrian bravado and military skill, equipment, and saddles. :-)
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Reply
#57
Quote:It's a glimpse of the future and the Holy Knight of the middle ages. But it was a direct blend of Sarmatian, Roman, and Gallic, equestrian bravado and military skill, equipment, and saddles. :-)
Plus it's mentioning that his men wore mail coats, greaves and plate armour? Nice detail.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
Reply
#58
Hi, Robert

Yes. Something we rarely find in the writings of a "civilian." Confusedmile:
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Reply
#59
Quote:
Alanus post=334389 Wrote:It's a glimpse of the future and the Holy Knight of the middle ages. But it was a direct blend of Sarmatian, Roman, and Gallic, equestrian bravado and military skill, equipment, and saddles. :-)
Plus it's mentioning that his men wore mail coats, greaves and plate armour? Nice detail.

Sounds like Cataphract-grade equipment. I wonder if that's why only 18 of them overcame a Gothic siege.
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#60
We're getting both sides of the coin from Sidononius. The army of Riothamus plays with the girls (without permission), then gets tromped by Euric's forces. And then we have this: Ecdicius surpises the crap out of Euric's boys and rides back to a cheering throng.

Yes, the equipment and even the cavalry tactics appear to be at a military peak. Stuff of which Hollywood films are made of. From this point-- AD 470-- we supposedly slide downhill into the Dark Age, but the future is really a culmination of all that was developed in a Sarmato-Roman-Gothio-Gallic footprint. ;-)

No-one is better than anyone else; it simply depends on stategy... and just plain guts. ;-)
Alan J. Campbell

member of Legio III Cyrenaica and the Uncouth Barbarians

Author of:
The Demon's Door Bolt (2011)
Forging the Blade (2012)

"It's good to be king. Even when you're dead!"
             Old Yuezhi/Pazyrk proverb
Reply


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